North Korea Hits Back After Trump Tweets Heighten World War 3 Fears
The United States and North Korea seem to be locked into a cycle of insult and threats that have left many fearing that World War 3 is imminent. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, those fears were escalated earlier this week when U.S. President Donald Trump called military leaders to the White House. After that meeting, Trump called an impromptu press conference and told the press corps that he had asked military leaders for ‘military options” to deal with Iran and North Korea. Trump also suggested that the press call represented “the calm before the storm.”
As reported by the New York Post, when Trump was asked to explain his comments on Friday, he smiled and winked at a reporter and said: “you’ll see.” If Trump is seriously considering taking military action against Iran or North Korea, he is doing so with a smile and a wink, hardly the attitude that people want to see from a man who could push the world into World War 3.
Yesterday we got another glimpse into President Trump’s thinking about North Korea. As has become the norm, Trump lashed out on social media platform Twitter. Trump restricted himself to two posts when he said that “only one thing will work” when it comes to North Korea.
Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017
…hasn't worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017
Trump’s latest outburst compounds threats that he made to North Korea last weekend, and follow on from his speech at the United Nations, where Trump threatened to “totally destroy” the North Korean regime.
As reported by the Independent, this weeks meeting with the military and Trump’s recent comments hint strongly that the U.S. may be preparing to take military action against North Korea. You may recall that President Trump also undermined his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, whilst he was meeting with Chinese leaders to find a solution to the North Korean problem.
As reported by Reuters, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is not intimidated by Trump’s threats. In fact, those threats have the opposite effect. Speaking to North Korea’s ruling council Kim Jong-un praised the country’s nuclear program and said it was necessary to protect themselves against the “nuclear threats of the U.S. imperialists.” Kim Jong-un also said that North Korea’s nuclear weapons are a “powerful deterrent firmly safeguarding the peace and security in the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia.”
The latest comments from Kim Jong-un came just hours after Russian officials warned the Trump administration that they believe that North Korea is about to test an intercontinental missile capable of delivering a nuclear payload to the west coast of the continental United States.
The standoff between the U.S. and North Korea is reminiscent of the kind of brinkmanship last seen during the Cuban missile crisis. As reported by the Washington Post, that crisis also raised fears that we were on the brink of a nuclear World War 3. That crisis was resolved because President John F. Kennedy made it clear that basing Russian nuclear missiles on Cuba was such a big threat that he was willing to launch a preemptive strike to stop it.
Thankfully, the world never discovered whether JFK would have carried out his threat because behind-the-scenes negotiations led to a peaceful solution. We must hope that Donald Trump is playing a similar game because a nuclear World War 3 could cost tens of millions of lives.
[Featured Image by Wong Maye-E/AP Images]
